Indiana State Police is reaching out to agencies across the country in search of the identity of a 5-year-old boy found dead Saturday inside a suitcase in rural Washington County.
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ISP says search for identity of 5-year-old boy found in suitcase is 'getting bigger by the day'
Indiana State Police is reaching out to agencies across the country in search of the identity of a 5-year-old boy found dead Saturday inside a suitcase in rural Washington County.
ISP Sgt. Carey Huls said the body of the boy was found Saturday night by a mushroom hunter in a heavily wooded area of Washington County, approximately 80 feet off a rural road near New Pekin.
"We're trying to spread that net as far as we can until we get that call, that information, that leads to that tip of the identification," Huls said. "So we've spoken with numerous media outlets across the country, including national media outlets, obviously our social media, those types of things. It's getting bigger by the day. And we're thankful for that because, we want it to keep getting bigger until we get that information."
Huls said the No. 1 question remains simple: Who is the boy they found inside the suitcase?
"We really want to know who he is," Huls said. "Because somebody had to take care of him, and somebody's not talking. Whoever was responsible for this young man — for his care, for his well-being — nobody's stepped forward. Now, there's lots of different answers that could answer why that is, but right now, we need to know who that person or people were that were responsible for him so we can find out exactly what happened. And that will ultimately change the direction of this investigation."
Huls said they cannot speak to whether there was foul play or not in the boy's death.
"We're obviously not going to do anything that will jeopardize our case, but people can take it at face value when you have a child who's 5, they don't take care of themselves," he said. "They need somebody to take care of them and they can't put themselves in a suitcase and wind up in the middle of the woods on their own. So, obviously, something's out of place here, and we're looking for the answers for that."